George turned over and pulled the duvet closer to his body. It was eleven in the morning – far too early for the eighteen-year-old to get out of bed. Gently, he reached with his right hand and caressed his bare buttocks. The pain had gone hours ago, but the surface of his bum still felt hard, like leather.

Earlier, when he went to the bathroom for a pee, he saw the dark purple bruises. He had never been spanked before so he had no idea how long they would last. Once years previously he had been kicked on the thigh playing football. That bruise had turned all he colours of the rainbow and took nearly two weeks to disappear completely.

He reached down to his cock and tugged. It stood to attention. It didn’t take much to make it do that. Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open.

“Watch out, Dad’s after you!” It was George’s older brother, Mark. He entered the room, stood and peered at his brother. “You’ll go blind if you keep doing that.” His dark brown eyes shone.

“What’s Dad want?” George asked nervously because he knew the answer already.

“What do you think?” Mark was enjoying himself enormously. “What time did you get in last night? One o’clock?”

George groaned. He did not want to be reminded of last night.

Mark crossed the room and stood by a straight-backed chair. He removed George’s grey short trousers and school blazer from its seat, dropped them on the bed, and sat down. “You’re for it. Breaking curfew. It’ll be six-of-the-best for you, young man.” He swiped an imaginary cane through the air.

“Yeah, right,” George’s sarcasm was forced.

“Too right,” Mark beamed. “Why do you think he bought that school cane?” He let the question hang in the air for a while, before answering it himself. “So, he could keep us in order.”

Mark was right. Lots of fathers had acquired whippy rattan canes or specially-made wooden paddles to use on their sons. It was common for youngsters well into their twenties to be beaten by their dads. It had started when corporal punishment was brought back into schools. It was deemed such a success it spread like wildfire. Now, no young man or woman was immune from its threat.

Only that week two of George’s school pals had been across the headmaster’s huge pine desk. Eighteen years old. Short trousers at their ankles. White Y-front underpants at their knees. Six almighty swipes cut their arses to ribbons. It had been because of “slacking.” Not paying attention in lessons. Missed homework deadlines. That was all it took. “A short sharp shock,” the headmaster had called it. It was the kind of “wake-up call” the teenagers could expect right the way through their university careers as well if they didn’t buck up their ideas.

“So was it a girl?” Mark leaned forward in his chair as if to encourage his brother’s confidence. George groaned an assent.

Mark grinned, “Was it Julie?” His brother pulled the duvet over his head. “It was Julie! It was! Did she put out?”

George buried his head under a pillow. He didn’t want to think about last night. And, he sure as hell didn’t want to tell his brother about it.

Downstairs in the living room Mr Nightingale flexed a thick rattan cane thoughtfully in his hands. He had never held such a thing until the day he bought it in the local market. A stall specialised in all kinds of spanking instruments. It did a roaring trade in school canes and paddles. Mr Nightingale picked up a large scatter cushion and balanced it over the back of an armchair. Then, he positioned himself an arm’s length to its side. The cushion was more or less where George’s backside would be in about ten minutes’ time. Mr Nightingale rubbed the cane across the cushion, raised his arm high and brought the whippy rod crashing down. A line indented across the centre of the polyester-filled cushion.

It would be alright, Mr Nightingale told himself, as long as his son stayed still and willingly offered up his bum. The boy had to cooperate. A colleague at work had recently caned his own son for the first time. He was twenty years old and beefy and Mr Nightingale’s pal hadn’t expected the lad to take his punishment. Then he hit on a brilliant idea. He simply said if the boy didn’t take a caning he should pack his bags and leave home. That did the trick. The boy would be homeless and destitute. The state had special Youth Workcamps for people like that. If the rumours that abounded were only half true no one would ever want to be locked up in one of those. So, up and down the land young men were submissively showing their backsides for their fathers’ punishments.

Satisfied that he was ready, Mr Nightingale put the cane on the table and padded up the stairs to George’s bedroom. “Pah! Still in bed at this hour!” he berated his son the moment he opened the door. “Up. Now. Get downstairs. Two minutes. Wear those.” He pointed to the school short trousers on the bed, then turned on his heels and left.

George blushed to his roots. Perspiration began to form on his face and his heart rate beat a little faster. Mark stood up, and made for the door. At the threshold, he stopped, turned and after placing both hands against his buttocks he cried, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” Then, grinning wildly he closed the door behind him.

George pulled the duvet to one side and naked lifted himself off the bed. He paused to inspect his damaged buttocks in the dressing table mirror. Not one square centimetre of cheek or the back of his thighs was clear of bruising. He could see the outline of Julie’s dad’s heavy leather strap over and over again. Her old man hadn’t been best pleased when he and his girlfriend rolled up at home at gone midnight. George might have gotten away unscathed if Julie’s father hadn’t spotted her lipstick smeared on George’s face and a clear red ‘love bite’ on his neck. The whipping he gave George was nothing compared to what he gave Julie later.

George retrieved the bright red briefs he had thrown on the floor before crawling into bed. Then he stepped into the short trousers, pulled them up and snapped the buckle. A yellow tee-shirt lay nearby. It wasn’t too clean, but it would do. He didn’t bother with socks. Jesus, he thought, he had never been spanked in his life and now two beatings in twelve hours. His arse couldn’t take it.

He drew in several gulps of air, checked his look in the mirror, and went to meet his destiny. He found his father pacing the living room, swishing the cane through empty air. To George it looked awesome. The swishing noise it made set his teeth on edge. It looked a mighty effective rod. The leather strap had hurt enough, but surely, he thought, it would be nothing compared to this little beauty.

His father stopped swishing the moment he noticed his son watching. He held the cane against his leg and gently tapped it against his trousers. Mr Nightingale was an unprepossessing man. He was running to fat and his hair was receding. He looked like a hundred other people you might pass in the street and not notice. He wore blue jeans and a cheap Primark pullover. George stood silently. He couldn’t meet his dad’s eye. He held his hands behind his back and unintentionally rubbed his thumbs against his firm buttocks.

Mr Nightingale had prepared a speech. George heard little of it. He stared intently at the cane as his dad wobbled it in front of the eighteen-year-old’s face. It was something about rules and breaking them. Curfews came up somewhere. As did the phrase “deliberately disobedient”. The sermon was soon over. Mr Nightingale was keen to get down to business.

Outside in the passageway Mark peered through the partly opened door. He watched as his dad swished the cane, touched it against the back of the armchair and ordered curtly, “Bend over.” Mark was impressed with his brother’s fortitude as he leant forward and presented his bum for chastisement. Mark was not sure he could be so stoic. He had been spanked at university by Professor Riddell. Trousers down, over the knee. He had done badly in a spot test. The spanking on the seat of his underpants had hardly hurt, but he blazed with humiliation even now thinking about it. The professor didn’t care that it didn’t hurt. He took students across his knee because he knew he had the power to do so. There was nothing they could do about it.

George stretched himself across the chair. The back was a little too high for him so he had to stand on tip-toe. This made his short trousers ride up his buttocks into his crack, defining each cheek. His nose rested on a scatter cushion. He could smell the dust.

Mark shuffled uncomfortably as he watched his father take up position to his brother’s left. George’s bare legs twitched as he felt the strong but whippy rod tap against his backside. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the tremendous pain he expected. The agony of last night’s bare-arsed thrashing was vivid in his senses. He had no real experience of corporal punishment but instinctively he knew a whippy school cane would hurt so much more than a strap.

Mr Nightingale was ready. Like the son he was about to beat he knew little about corporal punishment. He too was guided by instinct. A caning had to hurt, otherwise what was the point of it? And for it to hurt properly it had to be laid on with some vigour.

George heard the swoosh of the cane as it flew through the air; then he felt its impact as it crushed into the taut seat of his grey short trousers. It seemed like an eternity before the agony registered. A line of burning hurt ran across the centre of both cheeks. Searing pain radiated from the line up and down his whole arse. He stamped his legs up and down in a fruitless manoeuvre to stop the agony spreading. The swipe knocked the breath out of him and he thrashed his head and shoulders around while trying to suck air into his lungs.

Mr Nightingale waited for his son to settle. He was in no hurry. Hidden behind him, Mark realised his own heartrate was speeding. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and licked his lips in anticipation of the second lash.

Swoosh! It landed just below the first. Now George had a scarlet strip about an inch and a half wide across his burning backside. He repeated the head swinging and the feet stomping and accompanied all that with a hiss through clenched teeth that was so long and loud it sounded like an old-fashioned steam engine settling down. He hugged a scatter cushion to his chest, then as he waited for stroke number three to tear his buttocks apart, he chewed on its corner.

Mark stood awkwardly, disconcerted that his cock was twitching. It wasn’t on the march, but it was getting ready to salute.

George choked on the cushion when the cane struck him just below the buttock. His father’s inexpert aim had sent the cane into the soft under cheek. If it had been any lower, it would have cut into the bare flesh of George’s thighs. Spit soaked the cushion and the teenager convulsed in a coughing fit. His bottom blazed with fire.

Quietly, Mr Nightingale walked to the front of the chair to inspect his son’s condition. The boy’s usually pallid face was scarlet, as was his neck. His eyes blazed intently. Tears were welling. Mr Nightingale was not a cruel man, but he was on a mission. He had promised himself to deliver a traditional “six-of-the-best” and he wasn’t about to change his mind now just because his son was distressed by the thrashing.

He resumed his position, tapped his cane higher on George’s rump and let go with another terrific cut. The firmer whack of the rattan on the fleshier part of the boy’s bum was distinctive, sounding much meatier than the previous stroke. George’s rear wiggled from left to right, but he managed to control his impulse to march up and down on the spot.

Mark’s cock ached almost as much as his brother’s battered backside. If he didn’t deal with it immediately, his underpants would be soaked in cum. But, he couldn’t tear himself away. He was mesmerized by the sight of his younger brother submissively offering his tight backside to his father’s swishy rattan cane.

Swipe! The scatter cushion became sodden as George’s tears flowed unremittingly. He had never known his body could be in such agony. And there was still more awful torment to come. Mr Nightingale viewed with great satisfaction his son’s contorting bottom. Ever increasing waves of agony engulfed George’s body. His father tapped the cane once more against the quivering buttocks and let fly for the last time. George whooped with pain and swallowed deeply.

George pushed himself up from the chair to a standing position. Tears cascaded down his cheeks. Snot dribbled from his nose. Clutching at his burning buttocks the teenager fled the room, hardly noticing that his brother Mark was bent double in the passageway, seemingly in some distress himself.

George took the stairs two at a time, burst through the door of his room and threw himself face down on the bed, before sobbing uncontrollably into a pillow.

Downstairs, his father took an off-white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped sweat from his brow. His shirt was also damp with perspiration. He walked from the room and opened the door to the cupboard under the stairs where he replaced the cane on a nail he had hammered into the wall especially for this purpose. It would stay there until later when he intended to have a “little talk” with Mark about spying at keyholes.